


You Got a Kiss For Me

by bubbysbub



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Battle of Five Armies Fix-It, I'm Sorry, M/M, Ridiculous, Threesomes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 07:14:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4995166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubbysbub/pseuds/bubbysbub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The obligatory "Bilbo returns home thinking Thorin is dead, only for his true love to come for him". Except with two true loves. And a head injury. </p>
<p>Not like I can write a trope to plan, though, is it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Got a Kiss For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Book canon, mostly -this picks up from the point in which Bilbo awakens on the battlefield after he takes a rock to the head from an Eagle- though with a few slight differences. Most importantly, the lack of HORRIBLE DEATH AND HEARTBREAK. Everybody lives for very vague and unexplained reasons, okay?
> 
> Also, peeps, major applause for miss Beta-Beth, for she is brilliant, and has mad poetry skills. Also, she has to put up with much, on this job. I'm surprised she hasn't thrown a hissy and quit yet. Adore her and her brilliance, peeps, as I do.

"I'd say you've not heard the news then."

The voice came from somewhere towards Bilbo's right, and he blinked a few times before swivelling his head as slowly as he could in the correct direction. A few more blinks and a grimace brought the speaker into focus, though he blinked a few more times to reassure himself that the sight that he was seeing was real: the Master of Laketown, clapped in irons and chained to the side of a large wooden wagon, sitting miserable and scuffed in the mud and muck below.

The place where a falling rock had hit him on his head throbbed strong for a moment, and the vision before him swung and doubled, and then tripled, and then shot back into focus again. Bilbo was fairly certain that despite that, he was most definitely seeing what he was seeing.

"What'd y' do?" Bilbo asked with as much astonishment as could be mustered at present, and then winced at the terrible slurring of his words. He ignored the bustling of Men and Elves and strange Dwarrows ahead of him, in what seemed to be a hastily thrown together camp, complete with healers darting from tent to tent, blood spattered across their robes.

Before him, the Master's expression turned even more sour.

"Apparently 'cowardice' is now a triable offence," he practically spat. "Bah! Self preservation is no bad thing. And I am their leader! Did they expect me to perish by way of some Orc sword to the belly with the rest of the common rabble?"

Bilbo hummed, in a way that would no doubt be taken as agreement by the fat, miserable excuse for a Man, but was entirely disinterested.

"What news?" he interrupted what had devolved to a small amount of sniffling and pitiful looks.

"Do you think you could steal the key?" the Master asked, ignoring his question in favour of holding up his bound wrists and shaking them in Bilbo's direction. "You stole the most precious gem in all the lands out from under the most paranoid Dwarf in all the lands. I'm sure you could find the key for me."

"I rather think I wouldn't want to," Bilbo said bluntly, the pounding in his head far too distracting for niceties. "I should think you quite deserve to be right where you are now."

The Master glared at him, scowling fiercely for a long, long moment.

"Your little Company," he said suddenly, a malicious little smile breaking through the murderous look. "They all seemed to have perished in battle."

Bilbo blinked again, uncertain he had heard correctly. His Company. _All_ of them? No, it was not possible; they had survived far too much on the journey for anything to have happened to them now. 

He swayed a little in place at the thought.

"Oh, I am sorry," the Master said, voice dripping with false sympathy. "It was unkind to tell you so bluntly, wasn't it? I meant only to warn you, though."

Bilbo's ears were ringing, and for a second, he was not sure whether he was standing the right way up. He _had_ rather taken a significant knock to the head. Best to focus on how miserable he was feeling, rather than-

" _Warn_ you," the Master said more insistently, when Bilbo did not respond immediately. "Are you listening? Your _King_ " -and here he sneered again- "lived a short while. Long enough to speak with the deformed runt that will take his place. King _Dain_ of Erebor has issued a warrant for you, little Halfling, for your arrest and execution, the charges being of course, your treasonous acts against the Ereborian Crown."

He really didn't remember sitting down, and a vague little fussy Hobbitly voice in the back of his mind mourned briefly for the amount of mud now coating his backside. It was about the only part of his befuddled mind that was functioning at the moment, though, so he paid brief mind to calculating the cost of a new wardrobe, when he returned home. 

"If you find the key and help me, I can help _you_ escape," the Master said idly, eyeing him sharply. 

His eyes closed. His Company? No. They'd faced an entire Goblin horde! His Dwarrows had hide tougher than rock. They were fine.

"I still have some few loyal to their Master; and we can easily leave this place. Already, gold has been taken from the mountain and given to Bard the Usurper. You could retrieve enough to buy us passage from here, and enough to set us both up anew, of course, and-"

"Right," Bilbo said dazedly, and staggered up and forward towards the stink and moan of a camp full of the unwashed and bloody.

"Where are you going? To get the key? I say, do you hear me? You'd best hurry, and do not be seen! Bring the key straight back...."

The Master's voice faded out of range as Bilbo slunk around miscellaneous boxes, and piles of discarded armour, dented and rent open and still bloodied from the bodies that they had obviously been taken from. When he could no longer hear the grating sound of the Master's smarmy tones, he crept into a spot between two tents, shaded and dark and partially behind a barrel of water. From the sounds within both tents, heard easily through the heavy cloth thrown over hastily hammered supports that made the walls, the tents were those of healing, and the mutters of both Elvish and Dwarven healing chants could be heard amongst the common speech of Men in pain.

He had not seen any of his Dwarrows. Not a one, amongst those moving about the camp, not sitting wearily with the other soldiers around fires and cook pots, not limping about near the entrance of any of the healing tents.

The Master could be wrong. His Dwarrows might be in the tents themselves, might even be in one tent, safe and whole! Thorin was a prince, a _king_ now, surely they would be granted a tent of their own in which to rest and deliberate after the battle. Really, they could be back in the mountain, and wondering where he was!

Or they could still be terribly angry with him.

His head throbbed, the lump where the rock had hit his head was engorged and hot and sent a sharp searing pain through his skull when he probed at it with shaking fingers. There was a cut on his leg that ached atrociously, and he was so tired, he could sleep for a month. He tugged a bit on the heavy cloth on one of the tents, where it overlapped, and pulled it around himself, sinking lower down to the ground. The shadows were lengthening with the end of what had been a very long and terrible day, and where he was hiding was somewhat dry, the canvas warm, and on this long, hard journey, he had slept in far worse conditions than this.

****

When he woke, the sun was peeking above the horizon, and his head did not hurt nearly so much. He was stiff and tired and his vision still swam when he turned too quickly, but he was better, and a little clearer-minded.

He did not move from his hiding place. To leave was to face reality, to go in search of the truth, and who knew what he might find? Better to stay where he was, and _believe_ , wholeheartedly, that his Dwarrows were just fine. They were fine. 

They were a bit angry with him at the moment, and that was understandable. It was. He'd make it up to them. When Bilbo explained things, hopefully they would realise why he had done what he had. They would _understand_ , eventually. Bilbo had made some bad choices, but they all had, really, and surely they could all come to rights between themselves. They could be a little thick, but generally, they were good lads, and now that they'd had time to calm down, they'd listen better. They always did that, had a brief period of rash yelling and stamping, and then they'd calm enough to listen.

It would all be fine. 

Bilbo screwed his eyes shut as tight as he could, ignoring the way his head went muzzy at the feel. They were _fine_. Things were just fine, and once all this horrible war thing had been put behind them, they'd do all the things they had been planning for months on the journey across Middle Earth.

Bofur had promised to take him exploring with him and Bombur and Bifur. They'd find all the nooks and crannies together and find the best and most extensive of carved cave cottages for Bombur and his family, with a shop front for Bifur to keep him busy, and a new inn for Bofur to buy and pay someone to run, to 'keep him in free beer', he'd said, and laughed when Bilbo had pointed out that technically, it wasn't free if you already owned the lot.

“Aye, you make a good point Master Baggins. But, my inn would serve nowt but the very best ale, served by the most buxom of maids, with a fine fire blazing, a fiddler playing most nights and hot dinner available for a little extra coin. I’ll not want for customers. It’ll be a fine profit that I make. More than enough to cover the cost of my own ale!” protested Bofur with an easy smile.

“I’ve seen you with your ale,” countered Bilbo, “you’d drink the first month’s profit before the first week was over. Sooner than that if someone challenged you to a drinking contest!”

Óin had been the one to promise him to help set up a room for him to stay in, if he chose to stay, or for when he visited. Dori had wanted to discuss the merits of his Hobbit doilies, and Nori had insisted he be the one to design Bilbo's walls, which had baffled Bilbo somewhat, until Dori had explained that his brother was a master stone worker, and Dwarrows with the most elaborate of rooms always had intricately carved walls and ceiling, and wonderful floors of mosaicked crystal panels and marble and polished coloured stone. Ori promised his brother was the absolute best.

Glóin had scowled and started making arrangements with Balin for citizenship and trade rights as a Dwarrow, which Balin assured him was necessary to be spending gold and operating within Erebor, but the basis for that had been set up when Bilbo had signed his initial contract. Nothing to worry about, Balin and Glóin would sort it all out.

What Thorin and Dwalin had promised him, was better not thought of now. Bilbo could not think on that now. Not think on what he might have lost if they had, if they were...

Everything was fine.

"-with big feet, though."

The voice was a booming noise that shocked Bilbo out of his contemplation, and he almost shot up in alarm, but caught himself and hunkered lower, carefully shifting the tent canvas over himself just a little more.

"Wot sort of creature has feet like that, then, eh?" a rather obnoxious voice demanded, and Bilbo sunk lower still, skin crawling as he realised what they were speaking of.

"Weren't you list'nin' or nuffin'? Itsa Halfling, innit?" a third voice chimed.

"If you see him, he's to be brought directly to King Dain, understood?" the first voice interrupted impatiently. 

"Yeah, alright, don't get huffy," the second voice said with great exasperation. 

They were still speaking, but they'd moved far enough away that Bilbo could no longer hear what they were saying. Not that he particularly wanted to really.

So. That was....

Well. That was that then, wasn't it?

Bilbo supposed he could go and find Gandalf. His friend would protect him, and maybe sort out all this mess for Bilbo, wouldn't he? Or Bard, perhaps, Bard might help him. Really, Thranduil would probably shelter him, if only to annoy any Dwarrow he could.

Or not, who knew? Diplomatic reasons and all that, now that the Dwarven kingdom had been re-established. Perhaps all his bridges had been officially burned.

A decision had to be made. He could stay and try and fix this mess, and risk having his head most sharply removed from his body, or he could sneak away and go back to the west. 

Really, what was left for him here?

****

Bilbo went home.

****

Or at least, he _tried_ to. He really was trying to go home.

" _NOT_ FOOD, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? NOT REALLY A BUNNY, DO YOU- OH, for all the green garden's-" Bilbo cut himself off with a sigh, hitching himself a little higher on his chosen bough, high in the tree he had scaled most quickly not long before, and tried to ignore the angry bear noises below.

It turned out, Beorn looked a lot like other bears. 

This bear was not Beorn.

The bear made another disgruntled noise and leapt to push impatiently against the tree again, and Bilbo clutched tighter at the trunk beside him when the tree shook dangerously.

"NOT FOOD, YOU FOOLISH CREATURE," he yelled again.

****

"This," Bilbo panted, "is not going as planned." 

He ducked and rolled again, stabbing wildly, and managing quite by accident, to spear the screeching Orc through the nose, ending its wild screaming abruptly. If it hadn't been not that much larger than Bilbo himself, and already sporting a festering raw stump where it's right arm had been, Bilbo might not have been so lucky.

There was a thrashing off to his left, and Bilbo rolled himself under a bush, slid down a ravine, and started running.

****

"You really don't want to eat me," Bilbo told the two trolls, who ignored him in favour of the cookpot they were preparing. He wiggled back and forth in his ropes and huffed when all it did was make him swing back and forth sickeningly. His head injury wasn't really that much better yet. 

"Gentlemen, I feel I should mention my parasite problem. In my tubes. They're as long as my arm, you know."

****

"I really just want to go home," he complained, smacking at the goblin that came tearing out at the bushes. 

****

"This is not going so well," Bilbo sighed. He'd taken refuge in another tree. At present, nothing was trying to decapitate/maim/consume his flesh, but better to be on the safer side than maimed or decapitated. Or eaten.

"It's only been two days," Bilbo whined, kicking at a nearby branch. "It's like the entire forest is conspiring to keep me from home!"

"Thank goodness for this forsaken forest, then," Fíli said, stalking out of the underbrush and glaring at him from the ground. "Do you know how much bother it's been trying to find you?"

"There's bad things in these woods, you know," Kíli said, tripping over a tree root while making his way over to his brother. "We've come across Goblins and Orcs, and even some Trolls turned to stone in a gully back that-a-way!"

"FOUND HIM!" Ori hollered beneath Bilbo, who almost fell from the tree in shock, and more so when the entire Company lumbered into the clearing beneath his tree, grumbling and scowling. With a great cursed bear that trailed in after them with an amused snuffle.

"BUNNY!" Beorn bellowed when he'd turned back to a very naked man. "I _told_ this lot that Maurice saw you yesterday! They didn't believe me!"

"Whatchyoo doing ina tree?" Nori asked, scratching at his head.

"Don't fall," Thorin said seriously.

Right.

So there were several possibilities, really. The most likely was, death. It might be the head wound. But it was probably death. He'd definitely died at some point.

"That bear must have eaten me, I suppose," he mused aloud, staring mournfully back at the Dwarrows staring at him.

"Maurice would not have eaten you!" Beorn insisted. "He was just curious. He's never seen anything like you before!"

"Did your bear chase our Hobbit?" Dwalin demanded, glaring fiercely.

"If it weren't for my bear, Dwarf, you wouldn't even know the fate of your Hobbit." Beorn glared just as ferociously back.

"But... you're dead," Bilbo said stupidly, and then shook his head, wincing when he realised what a bad idea that was still.

"What great pillock told you that?" Glóin asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"The Master of Laketown. He said that you'd all died in battle, and Dain wanted to execute me."

HIs Dwarrows stared, silent and blinking. 

Bilbo blinked back.

"In my defence," he tried, "I have a head wound."

"Not much of a defence," Balin said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Up until I said it aloud, it did seem very plausible," Bilbo insisted, swinging his legs back and forth. "And I've had to deal with ravenous bears and Orcs and Trolls and Goblins all trying to eat me. I should not be depended upon for rational thinking!"

"I'll definitely not be dependin' on any rational thinkin' from ya for a while, that's for sure," Bofur said from where he had started to scale the tree. 

Now that Bilbo was looking, quite a few of them seemed to be scaling the tree.

"This is very inconvenient, you know," Thorin said, hauling himself onto a branch across from Bilbo.

"Stop yer complainin'," Dwalin said, from where he was perching himself next to Bilbo. "Did you say Orcs?"

"And Trolls?" Bombur asked, arms and legs wrapped around a bough that creaked ominously.

"Maurice did not try and eat you, Bunny! You'll see, I'll just fetch him, and he'll _tell_ you..." Beorns voice faded as he stalked off through the forest.

"Did the Trolls try and eat you?" Bombur asked seriously, face upside down from where he hung.

"Oh, well, they're stone now, so..." Bilbo said.

"I can't believe you ran away!" Thorin roared, arms waving in the air, and if not for Óin's quick thinking, would have sent him plummeting to the ground.

"We've had to listen to him carry on about that for a whole day, you know," Glóin groused. "A right racket, he's made."

"I heard one of the soldiers say that Dain wanted me brought to him," Bilbo tried, groping for a defence.

"Of course he did," Óin said, scowling all the while. "We thought if we could find you, _this_ one might stay in his sick bed-"

"I am perfectly well," Thorin insisted, scowling just as fiercely in Óin's direction. "Well enough to find one errant Hobbit!"

"You're injured?" Bilbo asked. "And I left because I thought Dain wanted my head."

"Dain don't want your head," Dwalin insisted.

"Do _you_ want my head?" Bilbo asked Thorin seriously, and Thorin's scowl deepened to something both thunderous and guilt-ridden, all at once.

"I wouldn't mind a go at it," Dwalin said, grinning when a dozen astonished faces whipped around to face him. "If yer determined to give some head, I could do with a bit of a spit-n-shine," he said, leaning back to unbuckle his belt.

Bofur was the first to roar with laughter, and Balin buried his face into his hands, moaning about the crudity of younger brothers.

"Later," Thorin said to Dwalin, with a look in Bilbo's direction that made him shiver all over, even as he thumped Dwalin until he refastened his breeches. "I have no desire to cause any harm to you, Burglar. I want only to apologise for my actions at the gate. And ask that, that, well... that we climb down from this blasted tree and go back to Erebor. If you'll come?"

"He will when we're though with him," Dwalin muttered, obliging Bilbo with an insincere "ouch" when Bilbo attempted to elbow him in the ribs. Great thick rock of a dwarf probably didn't feel a thing.

"Can we get down now?" Dori asked, poking distrustfully at the point where his branch connected with the tree.

"You can go home if you really want to," Thorin said, though it sounded like it was effort to say, and he kicked Dwalin when he looked to object.

"He's part of the Company," Bofur argued, and Bifur yelled something enthusiastic and no-doubt supportive behind his cousin, almost falling from the branch he was perched on.

"That don't mean he's obliged to come home with us," Nori argued.

"We'd very much like it if you did, though," Balin said.

The weight of thirteen hopeful gazes on him was quite a thing to attempt to deny. Really, these creatures were so bothersome, he really _should_ go home, and sod the lot of them. It would be the smartest course of action.

He did have a head wound, though. 

"Someone had better've found food," he said finally. "And we have to find a surface comfortable enough to sleep on, because in my so-far limited experience with Ereborian floors -and gold- they are _terribly_ uncomfortable ack-! Get _off_ , you horrible lads," he shouted, when Fíli and Kíli managed to throw themselves into a precariously perched position to drape themselves all over Bilbo and plant wet, enthusiastic, and terribly bristly kisses across his poor tender cheeks. "That's it, everybody out of the tree!" Bilbo yelled, shoving at the lads until they toppled and had to very quickly grab for branches on their fall downwards, cackling all the way.

The Company cheered and started their descent, Bombur managing to 'caterpillar' along, arms and legs clutching at the trunk of the tree and shuffle-sliding headfirst all the way. Two Dwarrows, though, stayed put beside him.

"I didn't mean for all this to happen," Thorin blurted lowly. "I am truly sorry. The plan really was to court you."

"Oh?" Bilbo asked after a moment, for lack of anything intelligent to utter in its place.

"The great boof and I are..." Dwalin waved back and forth between himself and Thorin in what was no doubt supposed to be a meaningful manner, and waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Bilbo. "You seemed amenable to seein' the both of us when we suggested it before?"

Bilbo's mouth opened and closed a few times as he mentally reviewed all their not-so-subtle proposals over the last few months.

"I really just thought you wanted tumbling privileges," he confessed after a moment. "Are you meaning, eventual..."

"Marriage," Thorin nodded.

"And tumblin' as well, whenever you want," Dwalin supplied helpfully.

"Right," Bilbo said absently, turning the idea over in his head. "Yes, yes alright, that sounds good."

Dwalin and Thorin both suddenly grinned brightly at him, and Thorin took his hand carefully.

"I will do my utter best to give you no reason to regret this decision," he promised. 

"Can we get down now?" Dwalin asked, and Bilbo grinned back and started his descent.

"Just remember I have a head wound," he cautioned them. "We shall need to sort out all this rotten mess when we are all less injured and more rational."

"Alright," Thorin agreed easily, and Bilbo hummed. Perhaps things were not so terrible after all.

"BUNNY!" Beorn bellowed, as he ambled back into the clearing below. "Maurice said his brothers had never seen anything like you either, so they all came to look!"

"Oh, for-" Bilbo cursed, madly scrambling back up the tree amongst a dozen pairs of flailing dwarf limbs climbing the same way.

"NOT FOOD!" Fíli bellowed at the enthusiastic bear that appeared beneath him. 

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Should I apologise?
> 
> (I'm not sure what my obsession with Dwarfs in trees is. Also, if you can figure out where I got the title from, I shall be very impressed with you indeed.)


End file.
